Dampskibsselskabet Norden A/S

CSE:DNORD

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q2

[Operator]

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the NORDEN Interim Report Second Quarter of 2021 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jan Rindbo. Please go ahead.

[Jan Rindbo, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you very much, and welcome to the presentation of NORDEN's second quarter results for 2021. Thank you for dialing in or following the presentation online. My name is Jan Rindbo, and I am the CEO of NORDEN. Together with our CFO, Martin Badsted, we will today be presenting our Q2 results. You can follow the presented slides on screen or by downloading the presentation from our website. We will refer to the slide numbers for those of you dialing in. Turning to Slide 2, we have today's agenda outlined. We will first present the main highlights of Q2, both on a group level and for each of the 3 business units. Following this, we will comment on the market outlook for the dry cargo and tankers. Finally, we will outline our full year guidance and summarize with a few final words before we open up for the usual Q&A session. Please turn to Slide #4. During the second quarter, NORDEN realized $32 million in adjusted result, making Q2 the best quarter result in 6 years. NORDEN has capitalized on the incredibly strong dry cargo market during Q2 by increasing our exposure and using the volatility in the dry cargo market. In addition, the market value of NORDEN's owned and leased portfolio rose by $258 million during Q2 on the back of strong dry cargo market expectations. We have positioned ourselves for an even better performance in the second half of 2021, and we are well on our way to deliver the best annual result in 11 years. With continued recent increases in forward freight rates, this further adds to our strong outlook for dry cargo, and we therefore, increased our guidance for the full year adjusted result to between $140 million and $220 million. Taking a closer look at our business units. Asset Management generated $2 million in adjusted results. The main highlight is the significant increase in the market value of owned and leased vessels, as mentioned earlier. And based on our asset trading approach, we have started to convert some of the generated market value to profit through vessel sales which will benefit results in the second half of the year as sales gains. In addition, we have entered into attractive time charter out contracts that will benefit our results from next year. NORDEN's large number of extension options on dry cargo vessels are also becoming increasingly valuable in line with the exceptionally strong dry cargo market. These options provide a very attractive upside for NORDEN, which I will come back to in a moment. Dry Operator generated $34 million in adjusted result in Q2, and during the quarter, we built an all-time long position and high exposure towards the strong dry cargo market, which enabled NORDEN to begin capitalizing on very strong dry cargo rates. In addition to market positioning, we actively utilize arbitrage opportunities across NORDEN's different vessel types and geographies. This adds an additional margin layer by leveraging our extensive network in the industry while applying multiple trading strategies across our regional markets. Based on this, Dry Operator is very well positioned to further capitalize on the strong dry cargo market in the second half of the year. In Tanker Operator, we generated minus $4 million in a difficult market yet, we believe the spot market has bottomed out at this point. As such, we have continued to mitigate our exposure in the short term while remaining optimistic in the medium term. We are, therefore, adding length and optionality to our position, which will enable NORDEN to benefit from potential market improvements. In NORDEN's pool management activity, we are pleased to see that our partner, International Seaways added an additional 10 vessels to the pool following the merger with Diamond S. Please turn to Slide 7. Looking at the range of optionality in NORDEN's vessel portfolio, these options are becoming increasingly attractive as market rates continue to increase. In the 2 graphs shown, we have summarized the period extensions and purchase options in our leased fleet, where you can see the yearly average strike price level of each vessel type in our portfolio. At the end of Q2, NORDEN had more than 65,000 period option days, which corresponds to 180 full year extension periods. We have 69 purchase options with the majority on dry cargo vessels. For the next 2 years to mid-2023, NORDEN has 23 extension options on dry cargo vessels and 2 extension options on tankers. With this significant amount of potential value in NORDEN's portfolio, we believe that we have a very attractive risk reward profile based on our asset-light business model and the volatile markets that we operate in. At this point, I will now hand over to Martin, who will provide an update on the market outlook. Please turn to Slide #9.

[Martin Badsted, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Jan. Throughout most of 2021, we have witnessed a quite remarkable rise in dry cargo rates that have continued to increase every month. and we actually expect the dry cargo market to remain strong for some time still. While China's strong import demand may not continue at the same high growth levels, we expect demand from the rest of the world to offset any slowdown in the Chinese demand. It's also worth considering the ongoing effect of market inefficiencies, including logistical bottlenecks, idle time as well as regional demand and supply disruptions, which all add to the strength and volatility in the dry cargo market. We don't see these market inefficiencies unwinding in the short term, and NORDEN will continually be able to utilize this volatility. On the vessel supply side, the low order books, combined with rising steel prices continue to further support dry cargo period rates and asset prices. While there has been a marginal increase in dry cargo ordering in the first half of '21 compared to 2020, the order book continues to drop. On top of this, any new ordering activity is limited by container vessel newbuildings continuing to take up yard slots. Please turn to Slide 10. If we move to the tanker market, we believe that the challenged spot market rates have bottomed out at this point. We still believe it will be a gradual and relatively slow recovery looking towards 2022. But as Jan already mentioned, we dare to be optimistic in the medium to long term. The negative effect from drawdowns of oil inventories will dissipate and renewed inventory builds will eventually add to demand for seaborne transportation of refined oil providing the basis for higher tanker rates. As was the case in the dry cargo market, the supply outlook is also quite positive here with a historically low order book, which provides support to asset prices and period rates. Turn to Slide 14, please. If we look at NORDEN's guidance, we expect significantly stronger results in the second half of 2021, having built up a very strong dry cargo position that we expect to capitalize on. With recent increases in forward rates, this further adds to our strong outlook for dry cargo, and we therefore increased our guidance for the full year adjusted result to between $140 million to $220 million. NORDEN's dividend policy stipulates that minimum 50% of this result will be shared with our shareholders. Asset Management expects lower earnings in 2021 compared to last year. This is partly due to lower coverage rates on the tanker fleet. It's important to note that Asset Management earnings will benefit from higher dry cargo coverage rate from next year as existing coverage contracts are replaced with new, higher-paying contracts. Also, as we have already seen, the value of the portfolio of owned and leased vessels is expected to be significantly higher compared to the end of 2020, in line with the improvement in asset values and forward period rates in dry cargo. Dry Operator has positioned itself to further capitalize on the exceptionally strong dry cargo market and therefore, expects a very strong performance in the second half of 2021, realizing an annual adjusted result significantly better than the record result for last year. Tanker Operator on the other hand, expects an adjusted result, which is much weaker than 2020. While the business unit has taken on a lot of coverage and mitigated its short-term exposure, the historically weak tanker spot market throughout 2021 is expected to lead to a loss for the full year. Turn to Slide 15, please. At the end of Q2, the estimated market value of NORDEN's combined portfolio of owned and leased vessels had increased to almost $1.3 billion, an increase of $258 million since Q1. When adjusting for cash, debt and other balance sheet items, this results in a net asset value per share of DKK 179. And this does not include the value we believe we can generate from our 2 operators. When looking at the annualized earnings since both units were established, Dry Operator has achieved $35 million on average per year, while tanker operator has achieved $10 million on average per year. This means the 2 operators combined are making approximately $40 million to $50 million in annual profit historically, which is equivalent to DKK 38 to DKK 47 per share when applying a relatively low earnings multiple of 6. We, therefore, believe the ongoing value generated from our 2 operator units is a considerable part of assessing NORDEN's value and future earnings potential. And now I will hand you back to Jan for some final remarks and turn to Slide 16, please.

[Jan Rindbo, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you, Martin. To sum up, during Q2, NORDEN realized the best quarterly result in 6 years, and we are well on our way to deliver the best annual result in 11 years despite the very challenged tanker market. We have built a very strong dry cargo position during the first half year which we will benefit from during the rest of the year, where we expect significantly stronger results. With continued recent increases in forward freight rates, this further adds to our strong outlook for dry cargo and we, therefore, increased our guidance for the full year adjusted result to between $140 million and $220 million. The market value of owned and leased vessels saw a significant increase of 25% during Q2 on the back of strong dry cargo market expectations, which we have positioned NORDEN to further benefit from in the second half of the year. Based on our asset trading approach, we have actively converted some of this market value to profit to vessel sales, which will benefit NORDEN in the second half of the year as sales gains. In addition, we have entered into attractive time charter out contracts that will benefit our results from 2022. Lastly, NORDEN's risk/reward profile is really showing in the current volatile markets based on our asset-light business, where we can capitalize on the ongoing market developments, while also positioning ourselves for further upside through our extensive range of period options -- period extension options and purchase options. At this point, we will move to our Q&A session and open up for any questions that you may have. Operator, please open up for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We have no questions coming through on the phone lines. [Operator Instructions]

[Jan Rindbo, Chief Executive Officer]

Okay. If there are no questions, then let me thank you for your attention, and this concludes our presentation of the second quarter results for 2021. Thank you for your interest in NORDEN and for dialing in. Thank you, and have a good day.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.